I turned around. Eleanor was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite name. Something soft and sad and deeply understanding. Their eyes met and held. The room felt too small suddenly. Too warm.
I crossed back to the couch and sat down beside Eleanor. Closer than before. She didn’t move away.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For showing me this. For helping me understand.”
“I should be thanking you,” Eleanor said. “You gave her a life she wanted. You gave her happiness. And you gave her Lucas.”
We were very close now. I could see the flecks of gold in Eleanor’s eyes. She smelled like lavender. Like Anna.
My heart was pounding in my ears. Eleanor’s hand moved slightly on the cushion. Her fingers brushed against mine. Neither of us pulled away.
Then I leaned forward. Eleanor’s breath caught in her throat. Our faces were inches apart. I could feel the warmth of her skin. Her lips parted slightly.
And then I jerked backward, like I had been burned. I stood up so fast I knocked the coffee table with my knee. The journal fell to the floor.
“I can’t,” I said. My voice was strangled. “I can’t do this.”
“Anna…”
Eleanor covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. She was my sister. You were her husband. This is—”
“Wrong,” I finished. “This is wrong.”
We stared at each other in horror. The air between us felt heavy, almost poisonous.
“I should go,” I said, even though it was my apartment. I realized I was grabbing my jacket to leave my own home.
“No,” Eleanor said, standing up quickly. “I’ll go.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I think that’s best.”
She walked to the door. I stopped her with a hand on her arm, then pulled back instantly.
“I need some time,” I said. “To think. About all of this.”
“I understand,” Eleanor said. Her voice was barely audible.
She left. I sat in my van in the parking lot for twenty minutes, just to be out of the apartment, with my head resting against the steering wheel. My whole body was shaking. I had almost kissed my dead wife’s sister. I had wanted to. For a moment, I had forgotten everything except the warmth in Eleanor’s eyes and the way she understood my grief like no one else.
I felt like I had betrayed Anna all over again.
I didn’t call Eleanor for three weeks. I didn’t answer when she called me, either. The first few times, I stared at her name on my phone screen until it went to voicemail. After that, she stopped trying.
I told myself it was better this way. Cleaner. I had Lucas to focus on. Work to do. Bills to pay. I didn’t need complications. I didn’t need to think about the way Eleanor’s eyes had looked in the dim light of my apartment. Or the way my heart had jumped when our hands touched.
I especially didn’t need to think about how much I wanted to see her again.
Lucas was the one who broke first.
“Why doesn’t Aunt Eleanor come over anymore?” he asked one night at dinner. He pushed his macaroni around his plate without eating. “Did I do something wrong?”
My chest tightened. “No, buddy. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then why?” Lucas looked up at me with Anna’s eyes. “I miss her.”
I set down my fork. I didn’t have an answer that would make sense to a six-year-old. I barely understood it myself.
“She’s just busy,” I said weakly. “With work.”
Lucas frowned. He was smart enough to know that wasn’t the whole truth. But he didn’t push. He just went back to his dinner in silence.
That night after Lucas was asleep, I pulled out my phone. I scrolled through my messages. Eleanor had sent three texts in the first week. Each one was brief and careful.
I’m sorry about what happened.
I hope you’re okay.
Please let me know if you need anything. Tell Lucas I said hello.
After that, nothing.
I stared at the screen for a long time. Then I set the phone down without responding. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. When I made deliveries, I found myself driving past the Hart mansion. I never stopped. I just slowed down slightly and glanced at the iron gates before moving on.
At night, I dreamed about Anna. Except sometimes in the dreams, Anna would turn around, and it would be Eleanor instead. I would wake up sweating and guilty.
Eleanor wasn’t doing any better. She spent long hours at her office, burying herself in work. She attended board meetings, reviewed contracts, and signed documents. But her mind was elsewhere. At night, she sat in the sitting room where she and I had almost kissed. She stared at Evelyn’s portrait and tried to understand what she was feeling.
She had loved her sister. She still did. The grief of losing Evelyn had been the defining pain of her adult life. And now she had found her sister’s husband and child. She should have been grateful, relieved, happy to have this connection to Evelyn.
Instead, she was falling in love with me. And she hated herself for it.
She tried to convince herself it was just shared grief or loneliness. She had been alone for so long. Maybe she was just desperate for connection. But that didn’t explain the way her heart lifted when she thought about me. Or the way she remembered exactly how my voice sounded when I talked about Anna.
One evening, she opened Evelyn’s journal again. She read through the entry slowly. Then she stopped on the last page. The one where Evelyn had written about choosing love over everything else.
Eleanor traced her finger over the words. “What would you want, Em?” she whispered to the empty room. “What would you want me to do?”
The portrait on the wall stared back at her in silence.
The fourth week arrived. It was a Sunday morning. I woke early. Lucas was still asleep. The apartment was quiet. I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and realized I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
I got dressed and woke Lucas gently. We ate breakfast in silence. Then I said something I hadn’t planned.
“Do you want to go visit Mommy today?”
Lucas’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Really.”
We drove to the cemetery on the edge of town. It was a small place. Modest. The headstones were simple granite markers. Anna’s was near a large maple tree. I had picked the spot because she always loved trees.
We parked and walked across the grass. Lucas ran ahead; he knew the way. When we reached the grave, Lucas was already kneeling in front of the headstone. He touched the engraved letters of Anna’s name carefully.
“Hi, Mommy,” he said softly. “I brought Daddy.”
I knelt beside him. I put my hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “Hey, Anna,” I said. My voice was rough. “It’s been a while.”
We sat in silence for a moment. Then I heard footsteps behind us.
I turned. My heart stopped.
Eleanor was walking across the grass toward us. She wore jeans and a plain sweater. Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She stopped when she saw us. Her face went pale.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I can leave.”
“No,” I said, standing up. “Don’t.”
Eleanor looked at me, then at Lucas, then at the headstone. She walked forward slowly. When she reached us, she knelt down on the other side of the grave.
“Hi, Em,” she whispered. Her voice shook. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come. I didn’t know where you were. And when I found out…” She stopped. Tears ran down her face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry you had to run. I’m sorry you died thinking I was angry with you.”
Lucas watched her with wide eyes. He reached out and took Eleanor’s hand. She gripped it tightly.
“I miss you,” Eleanor said to the stone. “I miss you so much. And I found Ethan. And Lucas. They’re wonderful. You were so happy with them. I can see it in every story Ethan tells me. You chose well, Em. You chose so well.”
She wiped her eyes with her free hand. Then she looked at me across the grave.
“I came here to ask you something,” Eleanor said, addressing the headstone but looking at me. Her voice steadied slightly. “I came to ask if you’d be angry with me. Because I…”
She stopped. Started again.
“Because I have feelings for Ethan. And I don’t know if that’s wrong. If I’m betraying you. I need to know if you’d hate me for it.”
